DEAN'S LETTER

Several themes converge in my mind as I reflect on what might be useful in this letter. I have just returned from 2 delightful weeks in western Canada which reminded me again how easy it is to be deceived by linguistic clues. Our two cultures almost speak the same language (thanks to the imperial status of US TV). But our histories still condition us differently. I was struck by the seriousness by which many of our northern neighbors took their cultural pluralism, particularly in regard to First Peoples. Not only are Dineh and Inuit differentiated within that grouping! Museums are revising (and not for the first time) tribal names and spellings. Forget what Ruth Benedict told many of us about the Kwakiutl. I was also struck by the brilliant treatments of earth and life history in the 4 provincial museums that I was privileged to visit. No hesitancy about using the "E" word (although one occasionally substituted "emerging"). There was also an ease in using such terms as "myth," "legend," "fable," "sacred narrative" that showed the sensitivity of much talking and listening. A visitor is also struck by the great interest in environmental issues.

I returned to the Twin Cities in the midst of Billy Graham's 5-day and putatively-last Crusade. Local papers treated all of it as news (packing over 300,000 into a stadium, Christian rock, Christian moshing certainly deserved some note). But to print news columns of sermon excerpts without comment, particularly his repeated "one way" themes and his insistence that we are living in the "very last times"--that's a bit hard to take. In his last sermon, he thanked all the Catholics and Lutherans for their support. Except for a few of our fringe types, I sensed little dissent. Nor, I gather, was there any dissent from his denominations's recent call for a renewed Christian mission to the Jews!

About this same time, poll results were released from a study subsidized by the Pew Charitable Trusts (a very conservative outfit, but I doubt that had any effect on validity). They show an interesting shift: a slight majority of churched Americans now support involvement of churches with social and political issues. This is in all probability a result of the successes of the Christian Coalition--particularly among Southern Baptists. I was fascinated by the new breakdown terminology (NY Times, 6/25/96, C18 of national edition) of their tables: White Evangelical Protestants; White Non-evangelical Protestants; White Catholics; Black Christians; No Preference. There were too few Jews or Mormons in sample to be reported (although it was noted that Mormons most resemble Evangelical Protestants in their social/political values. Several items seem worth citing, and my percents are in original order.

I was digesting this poll about the same time I read Michael Werner's speech to the Friends of Religious Humanism (at the UUA annual Assembly). Werner used a metaphor that I have always loved, Gresham's Law, regarding religion: the bad always drives out the good. The older ones among us grew up in a period when the Roman Catholics were "reactionary," the Protestants "becoming liberal," and the fundamentalists (in the word of a famous seminary president) were "invisible." How things have changed! Such Protestants are now simply "non evangelicals," losing in numbers and financial strength. Who can seriously call them "mainstream" any more. Or, as some called them in the days when ecumenical meant the World and National Councils of Churches, "cooperating." How can that succession of five US presidents who have relied on Billy Graham to bless their wars be wrong?

Werner is very critical of the Unitarian Universalists whose new commitment to pluralism condemns them to the same loss process of the liberal Protestants. Look for his thoughts in the next issue of Religious Humanism.

What I conclude from this is that all of us need to evaluate organizational and promotional strategies much more closely than we have. Church-type organizing may no longer be very effective for a humanist message, and heavy academic-language propaganda clearly has an increasingly limited appeal. In NACH and the Institute we have a structure that potentially can address the current state of liberal non-believers and convince them that humanism is more than non-belief--much more. All of us can say this, but can we sing it, shout it, laugh it, dance it, paint it????

Since some of you may not be on the internet, I conclude with 2 postings I made to various humanist, ethical, and UU lists:

5/20/96

Following up on my post regarding physics and postmodernism, some of you wanted to know more about Norman Levitt and Paul Gross, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrel with Science (Johns Hopkins Press, 1996) and about Lingua Franca and Social Text. The New York Times ran a long and good story on May 18, (p. 1 and 11), which includes some choice interview quotes from Alan Sokal (author of the original parody, "A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies," Lingua Franca (May/June 1996), p. 62-64), Stanley Aronowitz, and editor Andrew Ross.

For those of you with Web access, I urge you to visit: http://www.ucr.edu/h-gig/horuslinks.html. This site, at the History Department of Univ. of Calif., Riverside, is a goldmine of resources and links to resources in philosophy, religion, cultural history, and American intellectual history. Download their table of contents (19 pages on my printer) and start a long feast.

5/23/96

1. Since my post on postmodernism and physics, the NY Times has published a long "defense" by Stanley Fish on the 5/21 Op-Ed page and the 5/23 letters are all on the issue. Fish ingenuously declares that his friends are simply doing sociology of science with no attention of anything but improving the sciences.

2. The meanings (and indeed usability) of the term "spirituality" trouble many of us. Granting that language usages change meanings over time, and that each of us can intend new things by old words, I have 2 suggestions: (a) Ask for a free subscription to the Harper's Torchletter (1169 Battery St., San Francisco CA 94111-1213) to see what a major publisher considers to come under this heading (guaranteed to make you more cautious); (b) Join the new One Spirit book club (800-955-5988) for monthly reviews of an incredibly wide range of items, some of which are quite solid.

3. Most important. Get a copy of Gerald Larue's new book, Freethought Across the Centuries: Toward a New Age of Enlightenment (Humanist Press, Amherst NY 14226). Over 500 pp. of superb treatment of freethought, rationalism, atheism etc. in all the major religious traditions. For those who don't know Gerry, he is an Ethical Leader, a member of the Institute's Adjunct Faculty, Pres. of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, distinguished Biblical Scholar (emeritus) from Univ. of So. Calif., etc. etc. What he does here is broaden the typical post-Western Enlightenment mindset of most of us and ecumenicize radical rethinking as a pluralistic concept. Agree or disagree with the thesis, the book will make waves and provide you with excellent bibliographical food for years to come. Gerry's purpose is to get the "left-wing" included in history of religions classes on all levels, and he provides the materials. One of our common endeavors should be to see that this is being done. All my information suggests that we have dropped way behind efforts of the 70's on both college campuses and K-12, when we pushed for objective "teaching about" religions and the exclusion of the "teaching of" religion. This attenuation leaves the field to the fundamentalists. Get this book and run with it.

Robert Tapp